Friday, November 26, 2010

I think the picture on this Thanksgiving postcard is very boring. What makes this postcard interesting is the Auburn Post Card Manufacturing advertising on the back. I suspect that the "best value" prices advertised are low because these cards were not selling well.

Auburn Post Card Manufacturing was a new name in 1913 for the Whitten-Dennison Post Card Company that originated in Maine. The company had moved to Indiana in 1910. The name was changed again in 1929 to Auburn Greeting Card Company. The company was known mainly for black-and-white views and comics. Auburn Post Card Mfg. was probably the publisher or distributor of this type of embossed greeting postcard, not the manufacturer.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

This Thanksgiving postcard with the singing turkeys never fails to amuse me. The idea of singing turkeys is ridiculous, but their words echo over and over in my mind:

Thanks to him who spared our livingWe're here, we're here till next Thanksgiving.

I am showing one of the same sets of turkey salt and pepper shakers that I showed last year, with the addition of a large matching turkey I found this year. I find the large turkey somewhat puzzling. It seems too big and hard to handle as a shaker, yet it has the same kind of holes as a small shaker. Is it really a salt shaker? Does it have a mate?

I'll end by wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving with a Thanksgiving Day Video Card.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Above is an old Thanksgiving postcard titled appropriately "Good Old Thanksgiving." This postcard was mailed 100 years ago in 1910.

Below is a 1966 Thanksgiving issue of of Ideals magazine with a pair of my turkey salt and pepper shakers. The shakers are marked Napco Ware Import Japan on a paper label.

The Thanksgiving issue of Ideals includes not only Thanksgiving, but also Halloween, harvest, and other seasonal fall subjects. Below are some of the pages. The "Home for Thanksgiving" painting and poem appeared opposite each other in a two-page spread. "The Patchwork Quilt" poem appeared on the right side of a two-page spread about quilting bees. The opposite page had another "The Quilting Bee" poem and a continuation of the same quilting bee illustration.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Today's Thanksgiving postcard showing a boy eating an apple was published by the Stecher Lithograph Company and is numbered 252 F. It was mailed in 1912.

Below are two apple wall pocket planters. The one on the left is marked PY and has an N in a circle. The one on the right is Royal Copley. Both have holes on the back for hanging. The one on the right has a flat bottom and can also stand.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

I have seen many postcards showing craft kits from National Handcraft Institute of Des Moines, Iowa. There is quite a bit of unused stock in the hands of postcard collectors and dealers. Until recently I assumed that these postcards were made to be mailed as advertisements. Now I think that most (possibly all) were made to be placed in the corresponding kit to show the completed product.

Some of the complete unused kits are also available on eBay and elsewhere, and most of pictures of the kits I have seen include the postcard. The front of the Garden Medley Apron kit postcard is shown above. The description below is from the postcard back. I find the descriptions on the postcards very amusing--the copywriters really got carried away.

Below is a picture of the complete unassembled apron kit and a scan of the first page of the directions (with even more of their amusing copy). These are "Copyright 1971, Fad-of-the-Month Club, Div. of NATIONAL HANDCRAFT INSTITUTE, INC., Des Moines, Iowa."